"The "Speciale Belge" beer style was created in 1904 for a brewing contest that was organized by the Universities of Belgium. The goal was to improve the quality of Belgian beer. The winner was a new style, called "Belge". Due to the success in the contest, a number of brewers decided to brew the style and called it "Speciale Belge".
A "Speciale Belge" is pale amber in color (slighly darker than a pilsner) as brewers tried to copy the color of pilsner in a top fermenting ale. Later the color became darker as pilsners became very common to prove that the style is something special.

After the second world war, when the quality of life in Belgium increased, several brewers created a "Speciale Belge" with a higher alcohol content, called a "Dubbel Special Belge".

The beer has a big body, high effervescence, and a deep caramel flavor. There's a slight amount of yeast based sourness that creeps in to offer balance, with a flavor that reminds of dates or caramel covered apple.
Today the "Dubbel Speciale Belge" no longer exists, the current higher gravity beer styles are trappist, abbey ales and so on. Therefore Brouwerij de Glazen Toren decided to recreate this special beer style. "

Reviews by dgallina:

Pours almost clear red-brown with very active carbonation and a two-inch creamy white head. The foam and lace persist nicely. The beer smells yeasty and sweet, with peppery caramel, cocoa, and lightly phenolic alcohol overtones. Flavor is very malt-forward. Delicious toasted bread, powdered cocoa, and caramel notes dominate. Gentle fruity alcohol appears in the finish and some light alcohol warmth develops over time. Body is highly carbonated, yet smooth and supple. Rather clean for the style. A rare and delicious treat.

Paper wrapped 750 ml, as shown, pours about fifty percent creamy ecru hued foamy head, atop a mostly clear amber body that is distinctly ruby colored when held to a light. Retention is excellent and sheets of lacing drape the sides of the Duvel chalice.

Airy, medium body seems lighter than it really is. Carbonation is average in intensity but has a soft and satiny feel. Nice!

Taste opens with fruity melon and strawberry. Yeasty spiciness adds white pepper and coriander. Solid caramel malt backbone supports lots of gentle complexities. There is a soft floral hop bitterness that grows stronger as it warms. Pastoral and earthy notes from the hops and yeast add what can only be called a Saison character. Finishes very even handed with the honey and caramel sweetness fading meekly into the soft and pastoral bitterness.

Exceptional drinkability for a dubbel. This one has such complexity of character that it evokes traits of a saison, Belgian IPA, and dubbel, and deftly wraps them all into a very pleasant final product. Sorry to see this bottle go dry.

750ml bottle, once again wrapped in thin, crinkly paper - the label, it would seem, upon further unsurprising investigation. On to the beer - the "Angel's Cut" - very nice, evocative of fine whiskey, and whatnot.

This beer pours a hazy red-brick amber hue, with a teeming tower of puffy, thickly foamy, and amusingly bubbly ecru head, which leaves some sudsy tree branch lace in spots around the glass as it genially recedes.

The bubbles are pretty equitable in their plain, inoffensive rendering, the body a strange, heretofore unexpected medium-light weight for the style, and smooth in a hard water sort of sense. It finishes barely off-dry, the grainy pale, somewhat bready malt hangin' tough, while the yeast, black fruit, and lingering zesty spice all perform well as far as their coda is concerned.

Once again, this brewery goes and messes with my expectations of entrenched Belgian styles. This time, it's a much less sweet version of the BSDA than I've come to know and love, and yet still be happy to throw my money and liver at. Tasty - weirdly so, and somehow beguiling (angelic?) in its dryness, this one's drinkability cannot, and shall not, be assailed - the big ABV be damned.

Been looking for this for quite almost a year, happy to finally run across a couple bottles. The last of the "regular" De Glazen Toren offerings, I'm excited to finally try this.

Bottled on February 23rd, 2010. Poured from a capped 750mL bottle into my Trappist Westvleteren goblet.

A careful pour fills the chalice half-full of rocky active foam none the less. When the beige head settles down a bit, you can observe the glossy liquid, coppery and not quite clear with ochre highlights. Massive lacing takes the form of three dimensional figures dancing and fighting one another aginst the sides of the glass surrounding a may-pole like mound of merengue.

Brown sugar, English biscuits or graham crackers, vague maple, in the nose, followed by bready yeast notes and a light yet complex hoppiness. Spiced fig spread is suggested with the esters as well.

Mildly tart palate entry - like berries submerged in sourdough/buckwheat starter. Phenolics come out in force with the next sip - the yeast and malt working together to hint at black pepper, coriander, clove, and more. "Old attic" and aspirin notes are in there as well. Very low grassy bitterness fades into jammy alcohol notes (more currant than raisin though) and a dry-ish yet still quite malty finish with a touch of leather. Unique and flavorful.

Medium-bodied, quite effervescent, soft mouthfeel. Lightly warming.

Delicate but delicious - superbly crafted (like all their ales), yet distinct from other examples of the style. Well worth trying.

A- There was a lot of foam that slowly gushed out after prying off the cap of this bottle. After getting that under control, I poured into a chalice. Pours a dark reddish brown color with an off-white head that leaves a ton of lacing around the glass and has great retention as well.

S- The aroma is sweet malt, dark fruits, bread, raisins, and yeast. Very nice, I love the smell of Dubbels and this one is no exception.

T- The taste is dark fruit with a bit of a peppery spiciness along with yeast with some yeast and hops in the finish as well as some alcohol. A little on the hoppy side when compared to other beers in this style.

M- The mouthfeel is medium bodied with a good amount of carboaton.

D- Overall, this is another great Dubbel that is definitely worth a shot for those who enjoy the style. Recommended!

Out of a 750ml capped bottle. Pours a hazy light brown color with a dense khaki colored head that dissipated into a light cap. The aroma is not what I would expect from a dubbel. It has a wine like tartness and funkiness. There are some light brown sugar and fig like aromas as well. The taste is quite different than the aroma, more true to a dubbel. A nice chocolately malt flavor, with a nice balance of candi sugar, fig, and raisins/prunes. The feel is fairly light and quite fizzy, perhaps too much carbonation. The finish is very nice, not too sweet or sticky. A very good dubbel, great flavor profile with the perfect amount of sweetness.

Picked up this on recommendation from our local Beer Guy Cole over at Kahn's Fine Wines. I asked him to recommend a beer I hadn't had, and we were in the Belgian section, so he suggested this. Said it was one of the best dubbels he had ever had.

I can see why he liked it. It is very assertively hopped for a Dubbel. So the inherent dryness of the beer is amplified by a finish that is surprisingly bitter. The aftertaste is nice minty hops.

That's the after party. The actual party itself is a little more subdued. Toffee, almonds, weak coffee, chocolate, jujubees, and allspice at the big guys up front.

The one problem I have is that the very high level of carbonation (normal for a dubbel, not knockin' here) combines with the hop bitterness to create a very astringent experience. If I swirl the glass to lose some of the carbonation, the mouthfeel becomes too thin. A tricky balance.

A very good Dubbel. I'm having no problems finishing the 750. It isn't a contemplative beer, though. I'm drinking it just below room temperature. I think this beer would actually benefit from being a little cooler. It has a lot of refreshing characteristics (not something I normally associate with dubbels!), and adding a pinch of cool to that would benefit the beer. You know, maybe, high 40s, low 50s?

Had a minor emergency with this beer, exploded all over the place, never seen so much come out of the bottle before it got into the glass.

The color is something else, a nice burn umber, a deep brown cherry with amber and toasty brown chestnut, this is sort of getting out of hand but this beer really does have a nice glow to it and some very impressive head retention and fluffiness to say the least.

Aroma is really fascinating, incredibly fruity, like I've had lambics that were less fruity than this beer is. Sour cherries, vanilla, oak, raspberries, sweet toasted bread. Nothing dominates, everything is in perfect harmony but nothing feels pulled back or reined in, the aroma, every bit of it, hits you with its entire weight, it doesn't beg for your attention its daring your not to stare (with your nose, i'm sorry that's sort of a bad use of imagery). Fucking good!

Oak, toasty bread, insanely toasty, nutty finish, fruity but not so much as the aroma would indicate, little bit of a horsey tartness coupled with a dry finish, very dry. Mouthfeel is off the charts, full bodies, crisp and dances on the tongue.

This is a wonderful beer apart from the explosion at the beginning, complex, powerful and distinguished a class act all the way.

Tracked this elusive beer down at PartiPak in Indy, only to find a bottle at a corner store in Chicago weeks later. Paper wrapper is stamped: 29 SEP 2007.

Served in a broad mouthed Moinette chalice. Attractive reddish auburn color, little floaties dancing around, and a puffy cap of generous foam that sounds like rice krispies. It has an ultra-fine whipped latte texture, and very creamy.

Some bready cookie sweetness in both aroma and taste, tempered by bitter herbal hops, that linger long into the dry aftertaste. The hop profile is mildly spicy, bolstered by some phenolic notes. Very full of toasty malt. Distinct Belgian yeast in the nose that reminded me of Fantôme. Delicate, fine carbonation that was very smooth. Easy to finish the bottle with no hint of the 8+% abv. A fairly simple and refined Dubbel.

Taste. Caramel, brown sugar, spicy belgian yeast, raisins, even a little coffee and maybe some cocoa powder. Nothing is overpowering or even especially stong, but the flavours blend in a very nice way. Just fantastic tasting!

Mouthfeel. Medium+ body with medium-low, smooth carbonation. Just a little bit sticky, but not much of a complaint.

Overall. A fantastic beer!! Amazingly easy to drink and very nice flavours in a great balance. Really enjoyed it, thanks again DaftCaskBC.